Old Hats and New Brooms
Old Hats and New Brooms is episode 1 of the second season of The Worst Witch TV series. It was Preceded by A Bolt from the Blue, and followed by Alarms and Diversions. Old Hats and New Brooms is based on the third Worst Witch book, A Bad Spell for the Worst Witch. Plot Mildred arrives for her second year at Cackle's in a positive mood; she starts it off by making a perfect landing in the courtyard. Of course, nobody's watching. Ethel has given herself a witchover, and looks like a whole new person. Miss Hardbroom appears and tells everyone to leave Ethel alone, and so Mildred and her friends go to watch the first years arrive. One of the first years, Sybil, seems particularly distraught. Aparently her sister told her horror stories about how mean everyone was, and that the worst witch, Mildred Hubble, would get her. Mildred doesn't know this, and in an attempt to be kind to Sybil, decides to introduce herself. She gets a bit carried away and tells a made up story about Miss Hardbroom turning people into frogs, which only seems to make matters worse. Sybil starts crying and Mildred is inevitably blamed for her tears. All the second years are delighted that they have Miss Gimlett as a form teacher instead of Miss Hardbroom. In the staffroom, just as Miss Bat returns from her stay in inner Mongolia (bringing with her some foul smelling fermented yak's milk), Miss Cackle recieves a letter from Miss Gimlett informing her that she's quit. Miss Drill and Miss Bat instantly jump at the chance to be a form teacher, and they start arguing, so Miss Cackle suggests that they share responsibility while she makes up her mind. This leads to rivalry and mischief between the two factions of Class Two - those for Miss Bat and those for Miss Drill. Meanwhile, the second years are all wearing jewellery and sunglasses and lounging about, much to the irritation of Miss Hardbroom, who reluctantly stops herself from zapping them, since she's not their teacher any more. Between the endless PE classes and the Mongolian chanting, Ethel and Drusilla decide that they'd rather have Miss Hardbroom back. So during the next exercise session they cast a spell which disrupts the class, and Miss Drill goes off to mope about her lack of control over the class. During Miss Bat's next chanting session Ethel casts another spell which causes disaster once more. Meanwhile, Miss Hardbroom, who has quite reached the end of her patience, is begging Miss Cackle to just choose one of them for the job and be done with it. Ethel and Drusilla enlist the help of Sybil and Clarice in their scheme to get Mildred and her gang in trouble. Mildred and her friends notice that all of their new things (sunglasses, fake tattoos, earings etc...) have gone missing. Suspecting Sybil, they rumage through the things in her room, where they make a surprise discovery - that Sybil is Ethel's younger sister. Miss Cackle and Miss Hardbroom arrive to find out what's going on. She sends everone except Sybil and Clarice out of the room. In the end they confiscate all of the stolen items. Neither Miss Bat nor Miss Drill make the grade as Year Two Class Tutor and Miss Hardbroom takes over Mildred's class once again, while Miss Drill and Miss Bat will share the first years. Quotes HB: "So when of rest of you have finished gawping like﻿ demented goldfish you might want to go greet the new girls in the traditional manner." Millie: I hope HB doesn’t see…” "I see everything, Mildred Hubble!"-Fenny and Gris﻿ imitating HB Davina: “if there’s an Outer Mongolia Miss Drill, then there must be an inner Mongolia!” Miss Bat’s Mongolian Undertone Chanting: "Kimono, Kafka, rucksack, flip-flops AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" (window breaks) Miss Bat levitates, HB comes in and zaps her, she crashes back to earth! Amelia: “Miss Hardbroom that was hardly necessary!” Trivia *Miss Bat's entrance here is a total reversal of the start of the first series. In the very first episode, Miss Cackle thought she wasn't back from holiday﻿ yet but she turned out to be in the cupboard; but here, Miss Cackle tried the cupboard straight away, and it turned out Miss Bat was only just back from her break! *This is the first appearance of Katy Allen as Ethel Hallow. Category:1998 TV Series